Karen asked if I am painting directly on the fabric. My method when using the water-soluble crayons is to color with the crayon directly on the fabric. I'm basically coloring like a kid in a coloring book. I then use a paintbrush to wet the fabric and "melt" the color. I dip my paintbrush into textile medium, which I usually add some water to. I'm not exactly sure why I started adding water to it, but think it was for a runnier consistency.
Deanna asked how I achieve the hard edge when applying water to the crayon. As I described above, I am controlling the amount of wetness applied because I'm using a paintbrush. There are other ways to add water/wetness to the crayons, but this is the method I use because of the control I have.
Sometimes I want to add more color after the first initial layer is down. I have different ways I go about doing that. I will sometimes color with the crayon right on the fabric where I want more color and then add more textile medium with the paintbrush. I sometimes will dip my paintbrush into the textile medium and then rub the paintbrush on the tip of the crayon to pick up some color. Or sometimes I scribble some crayon color onto a piece of parchment paper and then pick up color from that with my wet paintbrush. So there are several ways to go about it and I found that as I got more familiar with the product I was able to easily recognize which method would work best for where I'm working on the quilt or the effect I was after.
I hope this helps you understand more about my Neocolor II painting process. Thanks to everyone who commented and asked questions.
And here are photos of the finished bluebird quilt. I took these while it is being blocked on my design wall. The finished quilt measures 34" x 42".
